This is a 3 part short story - i'll be posting it up each week, over three weeks! Its a bit different for me, certainly experimental!! Enjoy!
Part 1
'…Without darkness,
Nothing comes to birth,
As without light
Nothing flowers.'
I see my brother's fall.
I see my brothers fail.
I am awash in their blood and drowning in a strange, alien feeling that tramples upon my spirit like a falling mountain – could it be fear? But I shall know no fear, I shall…
He lay face down in sodden ground. His armour weighted so much so that he had sunk deep into the water-drenched mud. His superhuman mind fired into life, pumping blood through his body at a startling rate and demisting his dream-memories.
The battle… the vicious fighting… brother against brother…
With effort, he drew his arms into his body through the viscous mud; his damaged power armour motors whining as he did so. As he moved the standing water around him sloshed lazily over his helmet, blurring his groggy vision. Already he knew the haziness would pass soon – his internal HUD display had calculated the damage to him and his armour. He would live, and so would his ancient armour after a day with a tech-marine.
He pulled himself out of the ground, his armours' servos whining against the suction. Finally he stood, his and looked across the desolate, flooded landscape around him.
The dreadful aftermath of a ferocious battle surrounded him. Bodies, abandoned equipment, discarded weapons, smoking tanks, and other such horrors spread out for miles – all he heard, hauntingly, was an absence of life. A silence that would overwhelm any normal human. The faint green tinge to the scene as he looked out from his helmet display gave it a ghostly feel, and so he slowly unhooked it, wanting to see the damaged land with his own eyes. His internal air filters hissed as he pulled his helmet free, and abruptly he breathed the actual air of this world. It had a heavy, sweet taste, but it was tainted. The bodies of the fallen littered the wasteland in every direction and their smell filled his sensitive nostrils.
Menacing, rain-laden clouds smothered the sky, casting a deep gloom and dark shadows. He clipped the helmet to his utility belt, and checked his chronometer, realising that there was only an hour of light left.
How long had he been unconscious? What had happened to him? So many questions filled his thoughts, but he seemed certain of one thing: His brothers were dead. Everywhere they lay, partially concealed in the flooded ground. But he saw them – he knew they were there.
In the distance, his enhanced eyes sought out any indication of where the enemy lay. His battle brothers needed to be avenged. He needed to fulfil his Oath of Battle – so far, he had failed. What would He think?
A trail of smoke could be seen in the distance.
Good. Now all he needed was his weapons, his tools of vengeance.
Then the hunt would begin.
'When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honour scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism.'
*
'Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.'
Aspin Wier looked fearfully out of his makeshift hiding place. The devastation was total. He had never seen such bloodshed, such wanton slaughter before in his life. He had grew up fighting in the violent streets and tunnels of the Hive, but this… this was truly war.
Already, his shattered mind had forgotten most of the details, merely remembering frayed feelings and thumping white noise. Gharn, Red, and Butcher… all dead, their life's torn away from them like they were sump-flies being swatted by giants.
His mother lay beside him, whimpering fearfully in her drug-induced sleep. He looked away from his surroundings, down toward his mother, the wound in her chest stood out like a dark black stain on pure white cloth, a visible cancer. He turned away, the sight too painful.
Fren was taking his merry time of it. He had been gone over an hour now, looking for some form of transport. They had been sure something could be salvaged from the battlefield. There had been hundreds, no, thousands of warriors battling for their very lives – it was a good bet something could be salvaged.
Aspin and his mother's gang had fled the Hive as the war descended upon them, using every contact and slippery deal they could to escape – hoping to find another Hive, or somewhere safe to continue living. Instead, they found themselves fighting for survival amidst an open battle. They had been part of a massive refugee convoy that came under attack from the enemy. The enemy…
Who were the real enemies? Ever since the outbreak of war, he had heard horrible, sibilant whisperings in his mind – as if something poked and prodded his mind. He ignored the creeping madness, pushing it out of his thoughts.
'Aspin,' someone said. 'Aspin!'
He turned from his guard position, trying to block the image of his wounded mother before him, and looked for the speaker. May appeared from out of the dull, shadowy rear of the troop carrier they sheltered in, its remains still smouldering in parts. 'What?'
'We need to move soon,' the young ganger girl stated, 'the others are desperate, and scared.'
He sighed. He shouldn't be dealing with this. He was barely even an adult, and anyway, most of the hundred or so survivors were not even part of the gang. But mother had took everyone under her protection – a time of war and all that…
'We'll give Fren a while longer, then we'll go.'
'Aspin,' May started, 'we don't have time. What if more of them are around?'
Them. The word stung. If more of the beasts found the survivors they were done for.
Aspin Wier shuddered, immediately trying to hide his discomfort from the girl. They had been lucky so far – only by the grace of the Emperor had they survived being caught up in an apocalyptic battle. Now all they had to do was find a way free, a way to find safety.
We can save you, came the whispers in his mind. We can help…
He blocked out the voices, shrugging off the flaring pain, steeling himself as he caught a glimpse of his wounded mother. What would come of them? What could happen next?
Fear held him in its icy grasp, and he quailed before it.
'Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive -- the risk to be alive and express what we really are.'
Quotes from:
Don Miguel Ruiz, May Sarton, Marilyn Ferguson and Robert Green Ingersoll
